Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Should've Posted This Yesterday

In keeping with my "in the submarine, won't surface much" theme- perhaps my favorite 'Pistols song is Submission. The Sex Pistols' Svengali manager, the late Malcolm McLaren suggested that the band write a song about BDSM, but the band subverted the idea.





My favorite thing about this song is that, while superficially silly, it works on a deeper level as an ode to the inscrutability that all women can possess. The hapless narrator is literally out of his depth, and is unable to fathom the mystery posed by the woman in whom he's "drowning". Yes, it's about taking the piss in response to Malcolm McLaren's management, and it's about a "submarine mission", but it's about so much more and it rucking focks... TURN IT UP TO ELEVEN!!!

I also want to put in a quick plug for Jon Savage's England's Dreaming, which is my all-time favorite book on music/pop-culture. I am not big on rock-star biography/hagiography, but this book transcends the genre, and offers a fascinating glimpse of mid-to-late seventies culture, in the U.K., and further afield. It also has an indispensible discography.

3 comments:

  1. TURN IT UP TO ELEVEN!!!

    I spent sophomore year in collage doing just that, and frequently this was the song.
    ~

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  2. I spent sophomore year in collage doing just that, and frequently this was the song.

    Thunder was shaking the Co-op!

    ReplyDelete